Substack has introduced a new feature that reveals which of your preferred newsletters are generated using AI technology.

This week, the newsletter and writing platform unveiled an integration with Pangram, an AI writing detection tool, enabling users to analyze posts, comments, and replies on Substack’s app to estimate the proportion of content authored by humans versus AI.

In the immediate future, this initiative might negatively impact Substack’s business, as it could reveal numerous newsletters on its platform that are not entirely crafted by humans. This might weaken trust in the platform’s collection of independent news and blogs, potentially harming its standing as a provider of high-quality content.

However, in the long run, AI-detection capabilities could help keep Substack devoid of “AI slop” and foster greater user confidence that what they are reading is penned by real individuals or, at the very least, help them understand when it’s not.

Substack follows several platforms that are beginning to label AI-generated content, particularly as AI assumes a larger role in the creation of such content. Social media sites now mark photographs and videos created with AI, while music streaming services have recently started labeling and sometimes penalizing AI-generated music.

“This is a positive application of AI,” stated Substack CEO Chris Best.

“When I used to present Substack to authors, I would say… we’ll handle everything except the challenging part,” he elaborated during an online discussion with Pangram’s founder, Max Spero. “You need to possess something — an idea that’s worth reading, worth caring about, worth sharing. That single element is quite difficult and immensely valuable… [S]oftware should manage everything else, but the hard part should fall to the individual.”

This feature will be accessible in Substack’s app for any post, note, reply, or comment exceeding 100 characters. Substack will also permit its writers to incorporate an optional AI author note, allowing creators to disclose their use of AI, as informed to TechCrunch by the company.

The corporation clarified that this tool is not intended to hinder or punish AI-assisted writing, but rather to motivate writers to add a “how I create this” explanation, detailing their methods.

Additionally, publishers can run Pangram on their own drafts prior to publication and can report and remove scans of their work that they believe contain errors.